Making the game harder on Impossible

[UncleJJ]

There have been many comments from experienced players that agree the Impossible level of difficulty is not hard enough. In this thread I would like us to discuss why this is and what specifically the developers could do about it. I am hoping this be a repository of all the best ideas for making Impossible live up to its name.

I have split the ideas into several categories which might help direct the discussion. I am trying to assemble a list of simple statements of the problem and simple proposals for making the gameplay harder in this section, you are not constrained to that format.

AI Improvements
Great Mage AI:
GMs unable to use Elite and Temple units properly. Needs to perk them better and take care of them
GMs over value mana versus gold, 1 mana is not worth 8 gold in most situations. This affects their building and trading decisions
GMs spend too much time casting the wrong sort of spells, increasing the number of types of spell that can cast in parallel would help use their mana and also diversify their spell casting
Neutral faction AI:
Nature faction AI:
Nature monsters provide an admirable challenge in Ardania until the player uses perked up advanced and elite units. We need a way to continue this challenge
Nature units in the portals are easy early in game and portal can be conquered.

Diplomacy
GMs declare war on the player too easily and are usually not prepared for war.
GMs declare war on the player when already fighting another GM and also trying to expand against the Nature or Neutral factions. This spreads their forces too thinly
GMs go to war with each other too easily and stay at war with each other too long wasting resources. They need to be more inclined to build up their cities and forces.

GMs should have a diplomatic bias on Impossible level against war with each other and against the player. This should cause them to make peace with each other when at war with the player.

Resources
GMs expand to a few cities and then stop (perhaps going to war too soon). Expansion needs to continue
GMs build too many cities with mana and science buildings


Units
GMs need to build more Elite units. I have never seen a GM Old Troll :sad:
GMs do not seem to upgrade units, I have never seen a warrior be ungraded to a veteran (or equivalent)


Work in Progress
I will edit this page with comments and ideas from other people as the discussion proceeds.
Your ideas about what the problem might be and suggestions for solution are welcome.

 

[UncleJJ]

Diplomatic solution

I think that a relatively simple change that could have a big effect is this suggestion:


GMs should have a diplomatic bias on Impossible level against war with each other and against the player. This should cause them to make peace with each other when at war with the player.


If the bias was strong enough this could cause all the GMs to gang up against the player, it's called Dogpiling in Civ 4, which might be very unfair but could also make the game a lot more difficult. The important thing is they will not be fighting against each other, you will be the only enemy unless you somehow solve the diplomatic situation.

If you have already played on Impossible and won you will have already fought against several GMs at one time and not really been that challenged, but that was probably because they were simultaneously fighting each other and also trying to fight the neutral and nature factions to expand their empire. The AI controlling the GMs needs a better focus, when they go to war they need to concentrate all their resources (gold, mana, building units and spell casting) on the main enemy and on Impossible that should be you.

Anecdotal Evidence: In several games I have noticed that 2 GMs were attacking my forces in a city I was defending at the same time. But they were also at war with each other and instead of combining efforts and attacking my city (stolen from one of them) they attacked each other so strongly that I wiped out both sides in my next turn :laugh: All 3 sides had about 5 units (2 advanced and 3 basic units), but I won perhaps by selecting "defend" (making my units harder to kill) or due to some random effect. If the GMs had been programmed to attack the player (me) prefferentially I would have lost all my troops and the city and one of the GMs would have ended up with it even if they did stay at war.

A simple change in the decision making of the AI like that (about which side to attack) would have made that Impossible game much tougher. I would still have won (probably), but it would have taken another 20 or 30 turns of exciting back and forth with my armies and spells.

JJ

 

[unmerged(493757)]

Just want to add some weird news.

Do you ever experienced getting swarmed by 50+ cutthroats each perked with several purchased perk (all of them have silver+elemental weapon, that two AIs even have Nevril and Adamantium armor) from 2 AIs at turn 35-40? Then the 3rd and 4th AI force their declaration of war on me at the next turn because of this, they too had swarm of perked units, i suspect that all of them probably had more than that. I have experienced it, i lost the game and the only lost i have ever suffered in the hand of AIs in this game, i was very surprised (shocked in awe actually), and this is no joke. Also, this situation only occurred once to me.

This means that the AI already have the capacity to easily defeat human player, but it rarely happen, i think the AI programmer should search this kind of state in the myriad states the AI choose, then reprogram the AI based on this.

add:
Maybe other factor why the AI never perk their unit is probably due to most resource that grant perk is not spread fairly, i often notice that AI territory rarely have those resource (except iron), especially resource that provide perk that grant resistance to magical damage (life,death,spirit,element), even silver is quite rare, out of all 6 AI rival, mostly only 2 of them have silver. I mean it's not only the fault of the game AI programming.

 

[UncleJJ]

I have never had quite that many cutthroats against me.hmy: I have had some tight situations on Impossible, like the anecdote I mentioned above, especially in the early and mid game (up to turn 80 say). I have only started about 20 games, I guess, and taken about 10 of those to a winning position, but only actually bothered to win twice and never been beaten by the GMs yet. So my experience is good but not as extensive as some others including you. Unfortunately I play other games as well and they take a lot of my free time.

I agree that the current AIs do have the capacity of beating player (on Impossible) but my point is they usually waste that chance by fighting too much among themselves. The player can often, as I did, wait until the GMs fight among themselves and then exploit that situation. If the GMs allied more easily with each other and dogpiled onto the player it would be much harder to win on Impossible. Most games would end in defeat, if they did that in the early or middle game. I think that making the game much harder is as simple as that. If the developers decide to do that we should perhaps have some control over how easily the GMs can ally with each other. In the late game once the player has a powerful economy and many Elite and temple units it is too late for an alliance to make much difference, but an early phase of co-operation between GMs instead of conflict could tip the balance.

-----

I agree with your additional point that the GMs often do not perk their units due to a lack of the necessary resources. I usually see iron armour and fine armour on fighters, for instance but not more exotic perks. I have seen just about all the perks at one time or another, so they can do it, but seldom more than one or two at a time. They don't have a strategy like a human player to gather at least one of all the possible perk buildings in their empire. This is partly due to the way they stop expanding after an early phase of settling and capturing neutrals. Basically they go to war too soon and should (on Impossible only) be much more tolerant of each other being near each other so they can exploit/ settle the land between them.

Thanks for your comments

 

[unmerged(493757)]

Well, i agree with you 100%, i just want to give some info, albeit an odd one.

I think you are completely right, the reason they are crappy most of the time is because they don't upgrade and buy perk, and as you mentioned it above, is because they warred among themselves without considering other more dangerous threat, this prevent them to expand further, and this is the reason why they don't upgrade or buy perk. In the rarest case i mentioned above, they don't warred among themselves, i checked their status with other AI, and they are all at peace, all of them declare war on me though.

I think the number of exotic resources (except adamantium and nevril) need to be increased in a huge map.

 

[Greybriar]

There have been many comments from experienced players that agree the Impossible level of difficulty is not hard enough....

Oh, please. Don't f*ck this game up.

 

[player1 fanatic]

But it's true, it's not hard enough.

Highest difficulty levels are supposed to be tough, even if that means higher level of AI cheating, to provide challenge.

Of course, if difficulty is increased, lower difficulties need to be balanced out too. So players who prefer current level of impossible difficulty can choose one of lower level that matches same level of challenge as old impossible level.

 

[Blecky]

But it's true, it's not hard enough.

Highest difficulty levels are supposed to be tough, even if that means higher level of AI cheating, to provide challenge.

Of course, if difficulty is increased, lower difficulties need to be balanced out too. So players who prefer current level of impossible difficulty can choose one of lower level that matches same level of challenge as old impossible level.

Just create a new difficulty level called "Divine" or something for all of you who are bored by the current AI settings.

 

[unmerged(510496)]

I remember deus ex. Terrible AIs. They stood no chance against an experienced player. And people loved it. I'd imagine many players do like that impossible is quite easy. It's a major ego boost.

 

[hadberz]

I agree the AI is not that tough, but we really need to wait and see what the next patch brings. I would love to see team setup, so I could have all the AI against me. That wouldn't affect anyone else who likes the current system, but would make the game tougher in theory anyways.

 

[Mardagg]

The AI isnt that bad compared to many other games,i actually like the way it plays,especially that it wages war vs other AI`s as well...thats fun to watch even though most of the time a stalemate atm.Obviously,once the AI gets some minor tweaks and the whole environment gets increased balance the AI will be a decent challenge imo.
Diplomacy wise i agree that the AI is going to war too easily with everyone.It should probably aim to be only at war with 1 enemy at a time with a max of 2 and afterwards very much inclined to maintain peace.furthermore i want to see alliances between AI`s of same race or religion .Once this gets solved everything is ok.For further challenge for experts Make a new difficulty setting harder than impossible and make the AI avoid any wars vs other AI`s in that.Or do this via e.g. "I am the greatest" button for every difficulty setting so that players can choose to play all war vs all AI`s with less or more bonis for the AI.
Obviously the current exploits vs the AI on diplomacy have to be removed as well.Just make it that no AI is ever accepting to give a player Money/Mana ever.

 

[unmerged(495697)]

Usually the AI is just plain bad, possibly doe to them warring on each other or just plain sucking, but a few times I've had an experience simlar to Atlatea, although I've never seen quite that big numbers. The few times they've managed to do it, they've even taken a couple of my cities, but the problem is that if you as the human have any idea how to fight a war of attrition, the AI will always lose, because they don't seem to have any follow up. They make a huge wave of units, but once that wave is down, they just stop. It's not that they're slow in reinforcing, they just don't do it at all. So they'll need some ability in maintaining the pressure.

There's also the problem that you already mentioned in how the AI can't deal with uber buffed up units, but that should get at least a little better if they learn to dispell as promised.

One other thing is that the AI doesn't know how to deal with units that are immune or very very resistant to their damage types. For example, if you throw some Skeleton veterans and snipers at any of the undead AI, chances are they'll just throw archers and vampires at you. Which for those who don't know, doesn't really work all that well. Even a naked skeleton warrior would do better and the AI should be able to recognize that.

 

[unmerged(504056)]

I believe they should make it possible to customize the settings on all difficulty levels. If you ever played Civilization you know what I'm talking about. That way you could easily find the difficulty level/settings that suites your own way to play and I suppose that could satisfied even those who wants harder impossible settings.

Here are a few examples: Aggressive AI, always war, hard neutral faction, hard nature faction, easy additional worlds, hard additional worlds.

Also random events (making the game harder to play) such as swarms of nature/neutral creatures, also creatures could more frequently attack you from the other worlds making it harder to settle next to mystical portals .

 

[unmerged(170187)]

If the bias was strong enough this could cause all the GMs to gang up against the player, it's called Dogpiling in Civ 4, which might be very unfair but could also make the game a lot more difficult. The important thing is they will not be fighting against each other, you will be the only enemy unless you somehow solve the diplomatic situation.

If you have already played on Impossible and won you will have already fought against several GMs at one time and not really been that challenged, but that was probably because they were simultaneously fighting each other and also trying to fight the neutral and nature factions to expand their empire. The AI controlling the GMs needs a better focus, when they go to war they need to concentrate all their resources (gold, mana, building units and spell casting) on the main enemy and on Impossible that should be you.

Implementing Dogpiling in would be a nice addition. The problem with the AI fighting on multiple fronts however is not really a problem in and of itself but rather the AI not properly focusing those units where they need to be and not having enough units period.

Impossible difficulty has become pretty much a joke to me now as in most games I just ignore the AI's demands and spend the whole game at war with them. Often times fighting on 3-4 fronts as I'm at war with every since AI. Heck the only time I had a real fight on my hands was I decided to be more peaceful in one game and the AI built up an impressive army than declared war without even making a demand first. My forces were busy on 2 other fronts when the third one opened up and the AI had several perked out merc units and even spotted a couple temple units in there. I lost a few cities before I was able to regroup with some forces over there. Since then I've learned peace is for chumps and have forces on all fronts.

Just want to add some weird news.

Do you ever experienced getting swarmed by 50+ cutthroats each perked with several purchased perk ...

Besides the fact that I think your exaggerating on the 50+, I don't think many of the AI's problems are so much of actually doing stuff as it is actually have the gold to do that stuff. The AI starts with a huge cash reserve on impossible so if it got the option to get the perk then odds are spent much of that money upgrading those units. Once the AI burns through that starting gold it turns into the same old run of the mill normal AI.

Also there is the very real chance it happen to find those two resources near each other on the map and simply pumped them out. I've noticed when the AI does get a good city placement with multiple unit perk resources it does pump out those nicely perked units which put up more of a fight.

I've had some tough battles in curtain areas of the map but have never really been in danger of losing a game on Impossible.

Now that I think about it. I'll have to try the smallest map, Great Land, Max AI, and 1 Portal. Since the AI runs out of steam when it runs out of cash making things more crapped so you face the full brunt of it might make things more difficult.

The few times they've managed to do it, they've even taken a couple of my cities, but the problem is that if you as the human have any idea how to fight a war of attrition, the AI will always lose, because they don't seem to have any follow up. They make a huge wave of units, but once that wave is down, they just stop. It's not that they're slow in reinforcing, they just don't do it at all. So they'll need some ability in maintaining the pressure.

This is because of what I mentioned above. Unlike a lot of other strategy games where the AI gets a production bonus so they mostly outpace the player in building up, Warlock gives the AI a huge starting cash fund which fuels their early expansion and military. Once this fund starts runs out the AI's poorly designed economy (cities) are all that is left to sustain them. Even with 100% boost to it's economy the AI builds cities in such a poor fashion that any decent player can out produce them.

Unlike most games where having more cities means more income this game has you building fairly specialized cities. The down side of this is the vast majority of your cities are going to be nothing more than gold farms. This is so you can get the income needed to purchase those high end units and perks. The AI however tends not to build specialized cities and seems to build mostly generalized cities with troop production buildings in it. This means not only is the AI not earning as much as it could but it's cost are going up as well. The cost of building something that has a -5 gold upkeep instead of a craftsman guild is a net loss of 8 gold on your economy. Because not only are you losing the upkeep but your also suffering the opportunity cost of 3 gold. I majored in economics so that how I look at these sorts of things. The AI just does not have the funds to compete on the same level as the player regardless of how well it manages what little resources it has. That is the AI's biggest problem.

 

[unmerged(454886)]

Does anybody remember the flying Battleships from MoM or the Black Hole generators from MoO? Or more recently pretty much the whole Elemtal-game.
It's always the same: While the AI is trying to build up a decent all-around empire the human player just goes for the crucial game winners an whacks the AI every time.

I thought Warlock would be different because it's much more linear and winning comes pretty much down to building buffed late game units and earning lots of cash with lots of cities. Before they make the game more complicated by adding Lords and Whatsnot I hove the devs infuse the AI with some game winning ideas, otherwise it will end up on the shelf will all the other AI failures in strategy game history.

 

[unmerged(170187)]

otherwise it will end up on the shelf will all the other AI failures in strategy game history.

Well there is always MP to save us from the Bad AI. Something MoM and MoO didn't have. MoM however had a few balance issues where something was completely over powered and the AI never used it as well as being unable to counter it. But at least MoM was a challenge at hardest difficulty. Elemental:WoM on the other hand was just a BAD game though. Way too many flaws and even its Devs admitted that as they gave free copies of the Sequel to the people who had purchased it.

With Warlock's AI I feel I could write a few simple automated strategies to overwhelm the AI. Most of my games have become predicable in nature because I do the same thing over and over. I even tried mixing it up by going pure race empires. Which I will admit was a good idea just for practice sake as I learned more about all the units and their strengths and weakness.

Even though I've gone the pure race route and seen first hand how bad match ups can really hinder the battle I end up winning due to shear numbers. Undead vs Ratman/Rogues for example. Sure they are immune to about half the damage but it doesn't matter when I have 4 or more times the number of troops. I think most people don't see this problem, or at least it's not obvious, because of the importance people put on high tier units and perks.

As a challenge try only building the same types of units that the AI is and you'll notice that you have a lot more of those units than the AI. People don't notice the cash differences because they have 1 unit that can cost 5 times as much as the AI unit. Plus they may spend over a thousand gold on additional perks meaning the AI should have the funds to field about 10 mid level units to every one uber unit they field. And if the player has 3-4 uber units they should expect to see vast armies in AI space (30-40 units). But instead player has 3-4 uber units and they see maybe 15 enemy units.

In fact I found the game easier sticking to the mid range units instead of trying to throw all your eggs in one basket with uber units, I have armies that fight on multiple fronts instead of single units that get out flanked with a poorly defended empire.

 

[unmerged(493757)]

Besides the fact that I think your exaggerating on the 50+, I don't think many of the AI's problems are so much of actually doing stuff as it is actually have the gold to do that stuff. The AI starts with a huge cash reserve on impossible so if it got the option to get the perk then odds are spent much of that money upgrading those units. Once the AI burns through that starting gold it turns into the same old run of the mill normal AI.

Also there is the very real chance it happen to find those two resources near each other on the map and simply pumped them out. I've noticed when the AI does get a good city placement with multiple unit perk resources it does pump out those nicely perked units which put up more of a fight.

I've had some tough battles in curtain areas of the map but have never really been in danger of losing a game on Impossible.

Now that I think about it. I'll have to try the smallest map, Great Land, Max AI, and 1 Portal. Since the AI runs out of steam when it runs out of cash making things more crapped so you face the full brunt of it might make things more difficult.

I was expecting some one to express its disbelief on me, but no, it was not exaggeration, it is the truth, now if all hexes in your whole screen is occupied by cutthroats, that's already 30+ if you use wide screen with normal zoom of the game (no zooming in or zooming out) probably even more than 30+ actually that 50+ i said is from 2 AI, i even lessen its true number, actually they even have cleric spam, cleric spam means spirit damage spam which even your most buffed unit will die in 5 shots, no spirit defence buff without dauros or other unit that has high default spirit defence, i choose helia at that time (with default tendral), but it doesn't matter which god i choose if they have that number plus silvers, mana node, nevril & adamantium while the best thing i got is just iron and mana node, with 2 AIs, it's 60+, add two more, you can count it yourself, and it happens in turn 30-40, i've played 40+ games in impossible, it just happen once, and it depends on luck, the chance of this happening is too small anyway, besides, AI gank you 4v1 in turn 30 with 1 or 2 of them have even nevril+adamantium rarely happens. In impossible difficulty if AI is not at war with every other AI, they will have 30-40+ of units at that turn. Do note that each player setting is different, i never played with modified great mage, i never change its default perk, even if i use those that use super crappy perk like tendral (a bonus to initial gold and mana).

 

[Annex]

MP is not a replacement for bad AI. Thats like saying your imagination is a replacement for bad graphics. The games AI is quite incomplete and the issue needs to be addressed.

 

[unmerged(170187)]

I was expecting some one to express its disbelief on me, but no, it was not exaggeration, it is the truth, now if all hexes in your whole screen is occupied by cutthroats, that's already 30+ if you use wide screen with normal zoom of the game (no zooming in or zooming out) probably even more than 30+ actually that 50+ i said is from 2 AI, ... In impossible difficulty if AI is not at war with every other AI, they will have 30-40+ of units at that turn. Do note that each player setting is different, i never played with modified great mage, i never change its default perk, even if i use those that use super crappy perk like tendral (a bonus to initial gold and mana).

Yea 30+ sounds more believable. Along with a little more mix of units

My main skepticism comes from the amount of gold needed to build and perk out all of those units, even with the AI's starting boost, plus the time required to build units since they take 2-3 turns per city assuming the city has grown to the size able to build them. I could see a mix of units as the AI I often encounter early games on Impossible have 4-5 or more summon units mixed with normal units and merc units.

Odds are though the AI spent all of its starting gold on that force and if you have survived the first wave you would likely win the game. And that is part of the AI's problem as it has no staying power.

MP is not a replacement for bad AI. Thats like saying your imagination is a replacement for bad graphics. The games AI is quite incomplete and the issue needs to be addressed.

LOL. Graphics are not that important in games. The gameplay is much more important. To many people, especially those in marketing and younger generation, treat games superficially by thinking "Good Graphics = Good Game" and "Bad Graphics = Crappy Game". Some of the best games didn't have that good of graphics. Just look at all the MoM fans here in Warlock forums.

And there have been games that survive on MP alone because their AI is sub-par. You said the bad AI would cause you to shelf this game. But you could still play it with challenge against other players.

EDIT: Heck on the topic of Graphics, I made an ANSII based game back in College as part of a school project and the majority of the class find it much more fun and entertaining than the games others have made using fancy sprites or crude 3D renderings.

 

[GamingFather]

The AI is the main problem of the game. It gives you no real challenge if you are patient. Its just waiting for you to come at it at your own speed. The only thing that can stop you are random monsters...